1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to control of a print system in which a printer driver communicably connects a printer and a host computer, each having a communication interface for mutually sending/receiving information in real time.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, when using a printer for printing a digital image captured by a digital camera or the like, a method has been generally used in which the digital image is stored into a hard disk of a PC, and then software running on the PC is used to browse, edit and print the digital image.
Further, recent printers are provided with a card slot for inserting a recording medium used in a digital camera, and an operation panel for receiving a print setting instruction from a user, and have a function for printing a digital image in the recording medium by just the printer itself, without connecting to the PC.
In some of the printers described above, the image is displayed on a dedicated liquid crystal monitor provided to the printer, or on an externally connected monitor. The operation panel is used to perform settings and printing while viewing the display.
However, the above-mentioned printing method that is executed via the host PC, requires to perform operations of the software on the PC, which may require mouse and keyboard operations. Thus, the printing could not always be performed easily.
Moreover, in the case of the printer having the card slot and the operation panel, the operations are easy. However, a display unit of the operation panel and the dedicated monitor are small, and therefore it is difficult to perform the print settings and browse the image. Furthermore, the printing is performed by just the printer itself, so that high costs are required for materials such as a CPU, memory, and the like inside the printer. Its printing speed and print quality are also inferior as compared to printing via the host PC.